Bioethanol – status report on bioethanol production from wood and ...

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organism which give off no CO2. Acetic acid is converted esters which are subsequently hydrogentated to make ethanol. Hydrogen is obtained through gasification of the Lignin removed from the biomass. Canada The Canadian government has set it sights on a target of 5% renewable fuel in gasoline by 2010 and 2% renewable fuel in diesel by 2012. To support this, the federal government has established funding of C$550 million dollars for pilot plants and process development and pre-commercial development, with a further C$500 million for demonstration scale facilities and to assist with bridging the gap between development and commercialization of cellulosic ethanol technologies. Facilities under construction or planned (11) include: • Enerkem, Westbury - A 5 ML/yr cellulosic ethanol commercial demonstration plant has been comissioned by Enerkem in Westbury, Quebec. The plant will use thermal gasification and catalysis technology to produce ethanol and methanol from treated wood waste (end-of-life cycle power poles). The methanol and ethanol production modules are to be added early 2009. The Enerkem themochemical process yield is 360 L/t wood waste. Enerkem has partnered with GreenField Ethanol, a corn ethanol producer, to commercialise the Enerkem technology. A 36 ML/yr ethanol/methanol plant is planned for Edmonton, Alberta, utilising sorted municipal solid waste, start up is scheduled for 2011 • Iogen, Ottawa - Since 2004, Iogen has operated a demonstration-scale plant in Ottawa producing 2.5 ML/yr of ethanol from 30 t/d agricultural residues, including wheat, oat and barley straw. The technology can also be used successfully with hardwoods, but not softwoods. A modified steam explosion pretreatment is used to liberate the cellulose, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation of both C5 and C6 sugars. Ethanol yields of 340 L/t of fibre, are <strong>report</strong>ed. Lignin is separated and used to generate process steam and electricity. Iogen has partnered with Shell since 2002. Iogen’s is working to develop a 70 ML/y commercial plant in Prince Albert, Sask. The availability of straw, combined with government support, were key factors in this decision. This will be first facility to take advantage of the NextGen Biofuels fund. • Lignol has commissioned a pilot plant using the biochem-organosolv process, capable of producing 0.1 ML/yr of ethanol, at their research facilities in Vancouver, BC. The Alcell technology, originally developed by General Electric and Repap Enterprises, uses a solvent-based pretreatment and produces ethanol and High Purity Lignin (HP-L) from hardwood and softwood residue. Lignol are working with Pacific Ethanol on the development of a demonstration plant. Details of facilities under construction or planned in the rest of the world are discussed below: South America • Brazil is today producing ~ 40% of the world’s ethanol from sugar cane. Yields vary from 6,600 <strong>–</strong> 7,500 L/ha which means production costs half those of US corn-based ethanol processors. Therefore, there has been relatively low interest in second-generation bioethanol. However, recent studies made by Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES) together with FAO show that when fermenting bagasse and sugar cane the ethanol yield could reach 13,000 L/ha. • Dedini, Sao Paulo, Brazil - The sugar and ethanol co-operative Copersucar is supporting the Dedini S/A Indústrias de Base pilot plant using Rapid Hydrolysis (DRH). The pilot plant started operations in 2007 and can produce 1.81 ML/yr. The process uses an initial pretreatment with organic solvents followed by dilute acid hydrolysis and fermentation stages. C5 and C6 sugars are separated from lignin using an acid wash. Dedini claims a 30% increase in ethanol yields for a sugar-based ethanol plant with integration of the bagasse conversion process. Dedini, the world’s biggest producer of sugar cane ethanol, expects start-up of its first commercial scale plant in 2012. • Chile targets producing second-generation bioethanol from forest biomass within the next five years. Bioenercel is one of the two consortiums created for this development work. It has a fiveyear budget of US$7 million and is supported by the Chilean government, two public universities as well as pulp and paper companies Arauco, CMPC and Marisa. Bioenercel is not only supposed to develop and adapt technologies but also create necessary infrastructure for bioethanol production. The current laws in Chile require that, before the year 2020, 10% of the fuel used by cars will be replaced by bioethanol or biodiesel. Europe • Abengoa, Spain - Abengoa Bioenergy has been operating a biomass-to-ethanol pilot plant since the end of 2007 at the Biocarburantes Castilla y León grain-ethanol plant in Babilafuente, near Salamanca in Spain. 5 ML/yr are produced from wheat and barley straw using enzymatic hydrolysis (glucose). A steam explosion pretreatment stage, from SunOpta, is currently being installed and will start up early 2009. In the second phase, it is intended to separate the lignin and pentose sugars as co-products. (See also Abengoa in United States section).
• Weyland have developed a concentrated acid hydrolysis process with very high recovery of acid. They operate a pilot plant in Bergen, Norway and are developing a demonstration scale facility design to convert wood chips to ethanol. Statoil is partially funding the project. • Chemrec, Pitea, Sweden <strong>–</strong> Chemrec has developed a gasification process to convert pulp mill black liquor (BL) to liquid fuels including ethanol. A BL gasification development plant in Pitea, Sweden is located next to the Smurfit Kappa Kraftliner mill and the research institute ETC. The gasifier uses pressurized oxygen and is capable of gasifying 20 t BLS/d, producing a synthesis gas that requires little cleanup. Chemrec are currently involved in supplying Dimethyl Ether (DME) for 1 year pilot project. This project will make DME from Gasified black liquor to determine the viability of biomass produced DME as a diesel substitute. A commercial-scale BL liquor gasification plant has been operating at Weyerhauser’s New Bern mill in the US since 1996, and was rebuilt in 2003 increasing capacity to 300 t BLS/d (Fig. 5). Integration of a BL gasifier allows mills to produce liquid fuels and increase recovery capacity. At the New Bern mill the unit provides 15% of the mills BL recovery capacity. • Chempolis have developed a unique pulping process using formic acid that creates a clean cellulose suitable for conversion to ethanol. The formicobio process produces fuel grade ethanol from wood and non-wood sources. • St1 out of Finland has developed two processes: a food waste to ethanol processes, Etanolix® and a variation which converts woody biomass to ethanol named Bionolix. • SEKAB, Ornskoldsvik, Sweden <strong>–</strong> SEKAB, in conjunction with Etek Etanolteknik AB, has been operating a bioethanol pilot plant since 2004 at its Domsjo industrial site. The feedstock is pine wood chips, but other biomass such as bagasse, wheat and corn stover, energy grasses and recycled waste can be used. The plant has a maximum wood capacity of 2 BDT/d and ethanol production of 0.14 ML/yr. The process is based on multi-stage weak acid hydrolysis, a detoxification stage prior to fermentation, and separation of lignin using a membrane filter. Recent work has focused on improving the ethanol yield using pentosefermenting microorganisms. For cost reasons, enzymes are not used. Scale-up of this technology is planned for 2010-11 with the construction of a development facility of 6 ML/yr and a 120 ML/yr commercial plant in 2014, utilising wood waste and sugarcane bagasse. • Stora Enso, Varkaus, Finland - Plans have been announced to build a demonstration gasification plant at the research centre at Varkaus mill for the production of biofuels from wood residues. This is a joint venture between Stora Enso Oyj and Neste Oil Corporation. • UPM Kymmene, Finland <strong>–</strong> Finnish pulp and paper company UPM Kymmene and renewable fuel supplier Lassila and Tikanoja are testing bioethanol production from the pulp-based waste created by the paper industry. During the pilot tests ethanol and energy were produced from commercial and industrial waste, such as paper, cardboard and wood. By developing waste processing units, energy company St1’s biofuel division intends to produce 70 ML/yr of bioethanol by the end of 2011. St1 already has two commercial plants operating using food industry waste as raw material. UPM is also developing project for the production of Bio-oil and Fischer Tropsch liquids. Fig. 5 Weyerhauser, New Bern, USA • INBICON, a subsidiary of DONG energy Denmark, grew out the Elsam work on agriculture residues to ethanol. Inbicon have commissioned a commercial demonstration plant at the Kalundborg coal fired power station. The commercial demonstration plant converts 30,000 tpy of straw to 5.4 Ml of ethanol, 13,100 t of lignin and 11,250 t of C5 molasses. The principal purpose of the demonstration plant is to show that DONG Energy’s second-generation technology can be applied on a large scale, and can be integrated with a power station. Inbicon, Great River Energy and Otoka are currently developing plans for a commercial cellulosic ethanol plant which will consume 400,000 tpy of wheat straw and will be located in North Dakota. • BioGasol is constructing a 5 ML/yr demonstration plant in Denmark, called the BornBioFuel (BBF) project. The plant, located on the island of Bornholm, will demonstrate the potential of the Biogasol technology (see Pacific Ethanol) to produce ethanol from a diverse mixture of biomass, including local available agricultural residues and other low cost cellulosic feedstocks.
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